Responsibility

I can remember the fear as much as the humiliation. Coach had me by the facemask, and was screaming something about responsibility and didn't I understand. The visiting team had just scored on our home field. It was on a punt return. I was on the punt team. I had seen the guy run past me. On my left. Down the sideline. He was going very fast.
I was not.
In my ninth grade year in junior high, I played on the newly formed middleweight team. As I had back in my elementary days of Young America Football, I was a lineman. I played guard, tackle, even a little center. I was kept away from the ball as much as possible. I was blocking for those clever and quick enough to handle pigskin. I was handed plays back then, mimeographed pages full of x's and o's. I practiced them, with the understanding that it was my fob to keep the other team from tackling our ball carrier, or sacking our quarterback. What happened behind me or down the field was not my responsibility. My responsibility was to keep the guy two feet in front of me from moving me two feet back, and if I could I was going to move him two feet forward. I practiced this with a bunch of other linemen by doing this over and over again at the sound of a whistle. When it was game time, I was doing it to the sound of our quarterback's voice. Over and over again. All  kinds of excitement was taking place a few yards away, but mostly I was in a tangle of arms and legs, shoving someone approximately my size, waiting for the whistle to blow so we could do it all over again.
When I started playing again in ninth grade, my job wasn't that any different. The plays came in a binder now, and we had kicks. Field goals. Punts. When I was told that I had been assigned to the punt team, it meant that I might be playing more. I understood that there would be this magic moment where suddenly, after being that protective line for a few seconds, I was going to have a chance to run down the field and try to tackle the ball carrier from the other team. Suddenly, I would be on the defense.
And that's what I thought I was doing just before Coach had me by the facemask. I was running, as much as I ever did with all those pads and helmet, down the field, looking for someone with the ball. Then he ran past me. On the left. What I know now, after watching decades of professional and collegiate football and forming a greater understanding for the intricacies of the game, was that I was the gunner on that play. My responsibility was to protect the sideline. I was supposed to run to the outside to make sure that whatever happened, the returner would get turned back into the middle of the field or shoved out of bounds by yours truly. I didn't do that. I just ran down the field, looking for someone with the ball. I found him. Running past me down the sideline.
Returning a punt for a touchdown is a pretty rare occurrence in the game of football, but I got to witness it up close and  personal. I didn't play a lot of football after that. Not in high school. I watched a lot of games, but didn't go out for the team. I kept watching. Especially those punt returns. And I wince every time someone forgets their responsibility.